WEDDING BELL DUES HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS LEARN THERE'S MORE TO A MARRIAGE THAN RINGS AND CAKE.

But the romantic mood overcame the young couple when they were pronounced "man and wife."

Carlin lifted Tremblay's white veil. Their eyes met. They embraced.

They locked lips as if they had really meant it when they said, "Till death do us part."

"I got in a little trouble for that," Carlin, 17, said sheepishly after the ceremony.

Carlin and Tremblay were one of three McArthur High couples married in a mock wedding earlier this month at the Grand Palms Country Club in Pembroke Pines. The ceremonies were the culmination of the school's Family Living course in home economics.

It was hard to blame anyone for getting carried away. It was all so real.

Pretty bridesmaids all in a row. The rustle of silk and satin. The strains of Mendelssohn's Wedding March. The fragrance of flowery bouquets. Even the occasional tear wiped away by a hankie.

The lesson of the day: a wedding can go from a once in a lifetime two-ring ceremony to a chaotic three-ring circus if it's not planned right.

Students had to learn how to budget a meal for 120 guests, how to reserve a chapel and a caterer, how to choose a wedding gown or tuxedo, how to ask someone to be the best man.

Carlin and Tremblay even planned a honeymoon -- eight days and seven nights in Aruba for $1,899 plus tax.

About the only thing not included in the wedding preparations was how to draw up a pre-nuptial agreement.

"We haven't gotten into that," said teacher Denise Bradley.

On wedding day, Bradley played the nervous etiquette specialist for her students.

"Line up," she told brides- and grooms-to-be as they entered the chapel. "Walk slowly."

Punch and a catered buffet of finger foods followed the ceremonies. Then the wedding party moved to tables with hand-lettered name cards at each place for a sit-down lunch. The cake was cut and the brides and grooms rose to take the first dance.

Each of the wedding guests had to pay $30 -- mostly for food -- a price tag that sobered many of the students.

"You learn how to budget," said senior Leslie Bryant, who is engaged to be married for real in August. "I'm planning on spending about $10 per person. I have to do it a whole lot cheaper, considering I'm inviting about 250 people."

Bryant, who was in charge of arranging the tables at the mock wedding, learned a more general lesson about the real thing.

"There's a lot of stress," she said.

The class is an elective, one of dozens of courses threatened with elimination next year because of budget cuts. It isn't one of the three R's, but school officials said it provides students an opportunity to learn about something that directly affects their lives.

In addition to studying the cost of throwing a wedding, the students in the class learned the art of balancing household finances. They got advice on how to emotionally prepare for co-habitation, how to fight fairly, how to rear children.

"When I took home ec, they taught me to cook and sew," McArthur Principal Sherry Clark said. "In this class, they learn a lot more. They're applying finance and math, psychology and economics."

They also learn about different religions. Carlin and Tremblay had a Protestant wedding. Seniors Joan Iwen and Johnny Craig tied the knot in a Catholic rite, which was noteworthy because Iwen is white and Craig is black.

"Interracial marriage is normal to me," Craig, 18, said. "It's just other people that have to get used to it."

A third couple smashed a glass according to Jewish tradition.

"I say a lot of 'Blessed art thou's," Dorothy Lind, a junior who played a rabbi, said of her role. She also had some rabbinical advice for brides- and grooms-to-be.

"Wait to get married," she said. "Wait until you're ready."

Jennifer Burns played the blushing bride in the Jewish ceremony.

Burns, 16, had worked on her nails until almost midnight on the eve of her mock wedding. She got out of bed at 5:30 a.m. to do her hair and slip into the white gown and veil she borrowed from an aunt.

"Life didn't come with instructions," Burns said. "But through this class and this wedding, I'll be more prepared for life."

Adding another touch of reality to the day, Burns was accompanied to the altar by her real father.

He knew it was only a mock wedding. But when he played father of the bride giving away his first born, Jim Burns felt his emotions get the best of him.

"I almost choked up," he said after the ceremony. "But I couldn't do it. There were too many kids around watching me."